Confirming the growing split of decisions among federal courts addressing COVID-19 insurance issues, two district courts in the Fifth Circuit differed in their interpretation of virus exclusions, with one denying coverage and the other permitting the policyholder’s claim to proceed.
On November 4, a Mississippi federal district court dismissed a restaurant’s complaint for business interruption
In a sweeping decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit extended the absolute pollution exclusion to the unplanned discharge of “rock fines,” pellets produced during quarry operations, and denied coverage for the cost of removing the rock fines and defending a state law claim against the insured.
The insured, Eastern Concrete Materials,
A recent Tenth Circuit decision undercut policyholder arguments that Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claims are insurable under a standard CGL policy. Policyholders should take note of this decision but should not assume that all TCPA claims are necessarily uncovered.
On February 21, the Tenth Circuit affirmed a finding of no coverage on appeal from